Short Stories
by catesy
Summary: Stories written for Alice and Hatter, five hundred words or less.
1. To do list

_A/n_

_This is going to be a series of one-shots five hundred words or less, most of them taking place after the miniseries. Some of these stories I've had sitting around on my computer for a while now. Enjoy!_

To do list

Hatter awoke to the sounds of someone moving around in the kitchen. He glanced at the living room clock and inwardly groaned when he saw it was only five am. Silently he prayed it was Carol who was up at such an ungodly hour.

He sat up and looked into the kitchen and saw Alice, still dressed in her night clothes, cooking something on the stove. He slowly rolled on the couch and pulled the blanket over his head. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep, she would let him alone for a few more hours. It was only his second day living her world and they'd stayed up late last night before Alice had left him to go sleep in her own room.

Apparently, faking sleep was not going to save him. He felt her slowly climb next to him on the couch. She pulled the cover off his head and planted a light kiss on his cheek. "Come on Hatter, it's time to wake up."

He turned over and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her down next to him. "Give us a break, luv. Just a few more hours, all right?"

She pulled away from him, stood up and yanked the blanket away. "Sorry, honey, but we have a lot to do today."

Reluctantly, he followed her into kitchen. He sat down at the table and she placed a plate of eggs and toast in front of him. "Coffee or juice?" she asked.

"Coffee." Much to his disappointment, the Hamilton women did not drink tea.

Alice handed him the steaming cup with an apologetic look. "We'll pick up some tea for you today. I have it on my list."

"Your list?" he asked, taking a bite of his eggs. It was five am, when the hell had she had time to make a list?

"Yeah," she said sitting across from him and handing him her list.

He looked it over, reading her plains for the day.

_To do list_

Grocery shopping (Milk, eggs, bread, vanilla, something for dinner)

Pick up dry cleaning

Pick up Hatters things

_Things Hatter needs_

Toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, ect)

Cell phone

Keys to the apartment

Tea/kettle

He shook his head, much as he appreciated her trying, this list was completely wrong. "Can I have that pen over there?"

She handed him the pen and he sipped his coffee while he added to the list. When he finished he passed the paper back to her. She read over the revised list and her cheeks went red with embarrassment.

He smiled and stood, holding out his hand to her. "Well? It is on the list."

She was still blushing as he took her hand and led her into the bedroom.

The list was left alone on the kitchen table. Next to 'things Hatter needs' he'd added 'three more hours in bed preferably with my Alice'. He'd scratched out everything after that.


	2. Just Desserts

_A/n_

_I don't know how word count works here on FF. net, but it is not recording my word count right. I don't know if it's counting paragraph spacing as a word or what but I trust my programs word count, this story is 499 words long, not 517 like FF. net was saying. I just didn't want anyone to think I was cheating. Not that I have anyone to cheat against lol. Anyway, enjoy!_

Just Desserts

Alice had a bad day. She'd gotten caught in the rain on her way to work, had to fill out piles of paperwork on her new students, pick up two extra classes because another instructor called in sick, and been caught in the rain _again_ on her way home.

She was tired, wet, and aggravated.

Which was why when she found Hatter in the kitchen, eating _her_ chocolate brownie dessert that she'd bought the day before, she snapped.

All the frustration she felt bubbled over and she unleashed a tirade of anger on her boyfriend. Hatter stood there, brownie in one hand, fork in the other, like a deer caught in headlights.

"I can't believe you!" she yelled, pointing her finger accusingly at him. "You knew that was mine, you were there when I bought it!"

She expected him to cower before her and apologize for his complete lack of consideration. Instead, he squared his shoulders and looked at her with determination. He jabbed the fork into the dessert and scooped up a huge portion of brownie.

"You want it so badly." He shoved the fork towards her. "Eat it!"

She wrinkled her nose at the offending dessert. "I don't want it now; you've already eaten half of it."

He advanced on her, causing her to back into the cabinets. "What's wrong, don't want to share with me?"

The way he was speaking, his calm collected manner, made her feel like she was losing the upper hand. "No… not when you have no manners and go around eating other people's desserts."

"Manners?" he questioned. "You know what your problem is?"

"I don't have a problem."

"You're bitter." He continued, not acknowledging that she had spoken. He raised the fork and brownie to her lips. "Perhaps a bit of chocolate will sweeten you up, yeah?"

She shut her lips, fighting the brownie Hatter was trying to force on her. He set the bowl and fork down, picking up the remaining brownie chunk with his fingers. "Open up little Oyster."

Hatter pushed the brownie against her lips and followed her each time she turned her head away. He was smiling as he tried to coax her to take a bite. He smeared brownie and chocolate across her lips. When she opened her mouth to yell at him, he shoved the brownie in her mouth.

"That's it!" she yelled as she wiped the food off her face. She attacked him with what was left, rubbing chocolate across his cheek and mouth.

By the time they finished their food fight, they were both covered in chocolate, as was most of the kitchen.

She picked bits of food from his hair. "I'm sorry, I just had a bad day."

"Yeah, I gathered that when you came home and bit my head off." He bent down and kissed her cheek, licking up frosting. "How are ya feeling now?"

Alice smiled and kissed him before licking away the chocolate from her lips. "Much sweeter."


	3. Payment

Payment

"Come on man, I need a fix!"

Hatter sat calmly in his chair, staring at the man before him. Tom, one of his regular customers, had fallen behind on his payments. The man had come to him today to barter for his fix of Bliss.

He sipped his tea, taking longer than necessary just to watch the Tea-head squirm. "If ya want to get anything out of me, you need to pay up. If you have no money, get out. Stop wasting my time."

"Look, I don't have money, but I have clothes. Nice stuff, good quality." Tom pulled up the large canvas bag he'd brought with him.

Briefly, Hatter wondered exactly where a man like Tom would come up with 'nice' things but then quickly disregarded the thought, it wasn't his problem. "What do you have?"

Tom dumped the contents of the bag onto his white couch. Those clothes had better be clean or Tom would get a cleaning charge added to his already large bill. The man tossed a few items aside before holding out what looked like a silk shirt.

"See, nice stuff. It's got to be worth something, right?"

Hatter nonchalantly walked over to the pile, inspecting the garments. There were a few shirts he could keep for himself, but the rest weren't his size or taste. Still, it would be easy to sell the lot off and make enough to pay down Tom's bill.

"This'll do. You're in the clear for now, so get out."

"What about my fix?"

"Not enough here to cover that. Bring me something else and I'll see what I can do."

After Tom left, Hatter finished sorting the clothes. Towards the bottom of the pile was a purple, velvet coat. It looked in decent shape but would probably be a bit small on him. Still worth keeping around, you never knew when you'd need a good coat. He hung it in his wardrobe next the all the others. Returning to his work, the velvet coat was quickly forgotten.


	4. One good reason

_A/N_

_Pointless fluff_

One good reason

"Reason eight, when you get angry, you slip into strange Wonderland talk I don't understand."Alice said, reading from the paper in her hand.

Hatter underlined something on his own paper. "Funny, my number eight is that you have a mouth like a sailor."

"Ok," she said, nodding her head. "Seven, you're the complete opposite of me. If it wasn't for Wonderland, we never would have made it past a first date."

"Seven," he said, holding up as many fingers. "You watch the most asinine crap on TV. Jerseylicious is not a real word and it definitely shouldn't be a TV show."

"Six, there's more to drink than tea." She held up her coffee and took a sip.

He huffed. "I should have listed that swill you drink as number six. Instead, I only have two words, cold feet."

"You're the one who won't let me wear socks to bed." She looked down at her list for a moment before talking again. "Four,"

"What happened to five?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't want to talk about five."

"If you wrote it down you have to say it." He grabbed at her list but she quickly hid it behind her back.

"What are you two doing?" They looked up at Carol who was standing in the living room doorway.

"Listing reasons we shouldn't be together." Alice said nonchalantly.

"Ok…" Carol stared at the couple. "Why exactly?"

"Because _your daughter _read in some dumb magazine that it was a good couples exercise." Hatter said, lightly kicking Alice in her shin. "Ya know what? I'm changing my number four to that."

"To what?" Alice asked.

"The fact that you're easily swayed by others." He said as he crossed off his old answer.

"What was your old number four?" Alice tried to read his list but he clutched it protectively against his chest.

"I don't want to talk about four." He said, mocking her words from earlier.

"Then I'm going to change my five to something else!" Alice huffed.

"Stop!" cried Carol. "I'm not sure I understand what the point of this 'exercise' is. All you two are doing is aggravating each other."

"You list ten reasons you shouldn't be together and then you each list one reason why you should." Alice explained.

"Your one reason is supposed to outweigh the bad." Hatter added. "It's silly, but she insisted we try it."

Carol folded her arms across her chest. "Well I'd like the two of you to just get on with it. I'm trying to read and I can't concentrate with all the yelling."

"Fine." Alice said. "My one good reason is because I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone but you."

Hatter cupped her chin and brought her face close to his. "Mine is that there's not a single person in this world or any other that makes me as happy as you do."

They kissed and Carol smiled and left the room. Maybe now they'd stay quiet.


	5. Leash law

Leash law

Two seconds! She'd turned her back for two seconds and Hatter was gone, disappeared into the swarming crowd of people that had turned out for the malls annual fifty percent off sale.

Alice hurried past shop windows, looking inside each trying to locate her missing boyfriend. She looked anywhere she thought he'd find interesting. Book stores, clothing shops, music stores, she even looked in a children store but only to contemplate the idea of buying a child leash. She wondered how the man who couldn't stand still would take to being tethered to her every time they went out.

She stopped at the escalator and sat at one of the benches. She really hated when he did this. She tried not to show it, but she always worried about him when he was on his own. He'd only been here a few months and there was still so much he didn't know about living here. No telling what kind of trouble he could get himself into.

Of course the real reason she was afraid every time he ran off had to do with the lingering fears of abandonment she was trying to work past. She knew she shouldn't think about him leaving. She considered doubting him a horrible betrayal of the trust they shared. Besides, he'd crossed worlds for her, there was no reason to think he'd just up and leave.

Knowing he wasn't leaving didn't make her worry any less. She watched as people passed by and kept an eye out for Hatter. There was no point in wandering around aimlessly looking for him. He'd find her soon enough, he always did.

"Cookie?"

She looked past the large chocolate chip cookie being handed to her and into Hatters dark eyes. She took the cookie but didn't eat it. "Where have you been?"

He sat next to her, his own cookie already half eaten. "Where do you think? I was getting us cookies." He took a bite of his raisin oatmeal cookie, crumbs falling into his lap. "I looked all over for you. Why won't you ever just stay put?"

"Me? You're the one who runs off without saying anything." She picked a chip off her cookie and popped it in her mouth. "Do you know how angry it makes me when I can't find you? I actually thought about leashing you to me so you couldn't run off anymore."

He smiled. "Now I love you too, sweetness, but it's a bit soon to be thinking about marriage."

She smacked his arm. "I meant literally chaining you to me, like a dog not a husband."

"It's always the quiet one's" he said with a chuckle. "They have a store here for that. You know, leather and whips, the whole bit. If I'd of known you were into that sort of thing I've have picked you up something."

Alice blushed and buried her face in her hands. She never mentioned leashes again.


	6. Nicknames

Nicknames

Hatter loved using nicknames. He used them frequently but never in public. While they were in the company of others, he always just called her Alice. But privately, he rarely used her given name.

He had an arsenal of names he used when it was just the two of them. Sweetness, sweets, biscuit, tava (whatever that meant), dumpling, and baby doll . His favorite was shortcake. He'd use that whenever they argued; reminding her she'd always be a good head shorter than him.

When they were alone, in bed or any other romantic location, he had softer names for her. Kettle, dove, angel, and Oyster.

"My little Oyster."

He only used that name after they'd made love. He'd kiss her hands, her wrist, kiss over the spot where her mark used to be. It was the only time he ever called her Oyster. That one word was more powerful than any of the others. For her, it was the same hearing 'I love you'.

* * *

Alice never used nicknames. She called him David, not Davie or Dave. She never called him honey or sweetie or anything like that. It was just David.

When he'd first come to her world he decided to go back to using his given name. He explained to her how he changed his name from David to Hatter in order to keep the Suits from finding him. After his father's death, the Queen had wanted any loose ends tied up and ordered the capture of both him and his brother. His brother had been caught but he'd managed to get away. Now that that was no longer an issue, he wanted to go back to using his real name. She'd smiled and said that she'd always liked the name David and from then on that was all she called him.

He hadn't heard the name Hatter until a week later. Alone in their own apartment they'd finally had sex for the first time. It had started by him pushing her up against the door, then the moving boxes, and finally they fell to the floor. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she came and the name she screamed was Hatter, not David.

"Hatter."

She'd whisper in his ear whenever she was in the mood. It wasn't so much a name any more as it was a breathy plea for him to make love to her. He was more than happy to comply with his little Oyster.


	7. Snow

**Snow**

The first time Hatter saw snow, he'd been in her world two months.

It was early and Alice was happily curled up in bed, having the best dream of shopping and finding everything she wanted on sale. Her slumber was rudely interrupted by a heavy pounce on the bed and Hatter shaking her awake.

Still in a haze of sleep, she only made out half of what he was saying. Something about ash falling from the sky or something like that. With a sigh she gathered up her blankets, unwilling to leave her cocoon of warmth, and followed her boyfriend into the living room.

Hatter hurried to the window and held the curtain back so she could see. In the breaking daylight she could see heavy snowflakes falling into growing piles outside. "Hatter, it's just snow."

"I don't care what you call it, what the hell is it?" He stood at the window with his hands pressed against the glass like a child.

Normally she enjoyed explaining new things to him but at the moment she just wanted to get back to sleep. "Frozen water. It's what happens to rain in winter. Now come back to bed."

Instead of listening to her, he opened the window and tentatively stuck his fingers into the snow on the windowsill. "It's soft but oddly crunchy."

Pulling the blanket tighter around herself, she headed back towards the bedroom. "Yeah, and it will still be there in a few hours. Now let's go back to sleep."

Hatter followed her, all be it reluctantly. "Can we go out in it later?"

Still grumpy from being dragged out of bed so early, her fist thought was to tell him no. They were too old to be playing in the snow and they'd only end up wet and cold, two things she hated. Then the wicked idea came to her that Hatter didn't know what a snowball was. "Sure, honey, I'll show you how to have _lots_ of fun with snow."


	8. Liquor

**Liquor**

Hatter had never been drunk before coming to live in Alice's world. Besides wine, Wonderland had no liquor. Wine was ridiculously expensive and no one could afford to actually get drunk from the stuff.

When Alice found out he'd never been drunk and didn't know what most alcohol tasted like, she set out to fix it. They picked a bar and ordered shot after shot of different liquor. Some of it tasted ok, most of it was vile. Alice seemed to like Tequila but Hatter had no idea how she could stomach the stuff.

As the night went on, he found everything seemed to taste the same. The more he drank the better he felt. Apparently, alcohol made him funnier because Alice seemed to laugh at just about everything he said. They'd stumbled home together and somehow managed to make it to the bedroom. The last thing he remembered was picking a giggling Alice up over his shoulder and dumping her down on the bed.

He woke the next morning on the floor, not understanding how he got there and not really caring. His head was pounding and his stomach turned. He also had no idea how he ended up undressed and wearing only his boxers. He sat up and looked at his sleeping girlfriend, finding her fully dressed and curled up around her pillow. Hopefully he hadn't made too big a fool of himself.

It wasn't until weeks later that Alice showed him the video on her phone of the drunken striptease he'd done for her. It was a long time before Hatter lived it down and longer still before he drank again.


End file.
